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Updated: June 5, 2025
Pangbourne used to be one of the prettiest villages on the river; but its popularity has spoilt it. As we pass onwards, many other country houses Purley, Basildon, and Hardwick with their parks and clustering cottages, add their charm to the view. There are the beautiful woods of Streatley: hanging copses clothe the sides of the hills, and pretty villages nestle amid the trees.
In fact I shall sleep until they wake me up, and then I shall be very angry, and tell them they had better not play that game on Mr. Purley, as he would be in a fury if his rest should be broken. And so I will guard these two rooms from intrusion, and your escape from being discovered, as long as I possibly can."
Then stooping to gaze at the fallen foe, he condescended at length to recognize him. "Oh! is it you, Mr. Purley? I really thought it was Mr. Berner, reskying of his wife!" said Munson, with provoking coolness. "Then I wish you would make surer another time, you stupid donkey! You've all but killed me!" panted the victim, wiping the perspiration from his face. "What is the matter?"
But if ever by any chance they really are empty solitudes they are to the human spirit more desolate and dehumanized than any Yorkshire moors or Highland hills, because the suddenness with which the traveller drops into that silence has something about it as of evil elf-land. It seems to be one of the ragged suburbs of the cosmos half-forgotten by God such a place was Buxton Common, near Purley.
"Would they not be likely to make straight for the east and a seaport?" inquired farmer Nye suggestively. "To be sure they would," exclaimed Mr. Purley. "So now, Munson, we will go right back upon the road we came last night," he added, being still in ignorance as to the lost day.
Ibid. i. 373. Ibid. i. 374. Diversions of Purley, ii. 18. Cf. Mill's statement in Analysis, i. 304, that 'abstract terms are concrete terms with the connotation dropped. Ibid. ii. 9, etc. Ibid. ii. 399. Stephens, ii. 497. Life of Mackintosh, ii. 235-37. Begun for the Encyclopædia Metropolitana in 1818; and published in 1835-37. John Fearn published his Anti-Tooke in 1820.
"What's all this?" "Is anybody hurt?" Such were the hasty questions put by old Farmer Nye and his family, as they gathered around the scene of action. "Yes! I'm choked and shaken nearly to death!" gasped old Purley, in a fury. "It was done for the best," said Munson, soothingly. "Oh, for the best, indeed! Set fire to you, would you murder an innocent man out of kindness?" fiercely demanded Parley.
We observe men of genius, in public situations, sighing for this solitude. Amidst the impediments of the world, they are doomed to view their intellectual banquet often rising before them, like some fairy delusion, never to taste it. The great VERULAM often complained of the disturbances of his public life, and rejoiced in the occasional retirement he stole from public affairs. "And now, because I am in the country, I will send you some of my country fruits, which with me are good meditations; when I am in the city, they are choked with business." Lord CLARENDON, whose life so happily combined the contemplative with the active powers of man, dwells on three periods of retirement which he enjoyed; he always took pleasure in relating the great tranquillity of spirit experienced during his solitude at Jersey, where for more than two years, employed on his history, he daily wrote "one sheet of large paper with his own hand." At the close of his life, his literary labours in his other retirements are detailed with a proud satisfaction. Each of his solitudes occasioned a new acquisition; to one he owed the Spanish, to another the French, and to a third the Italian literature. The public are not yet acquainted with the fertility of Lord Clarendon's literary labours. It was not vanity that induced Scipio to declare of solitude, that it had no loneliness for him, since he voluntarily retired amidst a glorious life to his Linternum. CICERO was uneasy amid applauding Rome, and has distinguished his numerous works by the titles of his various villas. AULUS GELLIUS marked his solitude by his "Attic Nights." The "Golden Grove" of JEREMY TAYLOR is the produce of his retreat at the Earl of Carberry's seat in Wales; and the "Diversions of Purley" preserved a man of genius for posterity. VOLTAIRE had talents well adapted for society; but at one period of his life he passed five years in the most secret seclusion, and indeed usually lived in retirement. MONTESQUIEU quitted the brilliant circles of Paris for his books and his meditations, and was ridiculed by the gay triflers he deserted; "but my great work," he observes in triumph, "avance
First Sybil went and hung a towel over the knob of the lock, so as to darken the key-hole of the door guarded by Purley. Then she slipped the bolt, saying: "He may guard us if he must, but he shall neither look in upon us, nor intrude upon us, if I can help it." And then, instead of undressing for bed, they did the opposite thing, and quietly dressed for an escape.
Berners, gravely. "Now, however, having undertaken the painful duty, I must discharge it faithfully," added the officer. "Yes, Mr. Purley, but gently and considerately, I know. You will inflict as little of unmerited mortification as may be consistent with your duty." "Heaven knows I will." "Then I have a plan to propose, and a favor to ask of you."
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